There have been various types of apparatus for cutting and shaping food products as apparatuses for cutting a bar-shaped food dough, for example. The apparatus for cutting and shaping food products repeatedly opens and closes a cutting opening part in a center portion surrounded by shutters multiple times while feeding a bar-shaped food dough in a dual structure including a filling and a crust to the cutting opening part in the downward direction, and thereby to cut and shape the food dough multiple times. As an example, there is a cutting/shaping apparatus provided with at least three shutter pieces: each includes a cutting surface and a sliding surface which are adjacent shaping surfaces; and the sliding surface of each shutter piece is configured to slide on the cutting surface of its neighboring (separate) shutter piece. This cutting/shaping apparatus includes: a slide holding member (connecting member) for maintaining the sliding condition of the sliding surface of each shutter piece on the cutting surface of its neighboring shutter piece; and an ascending/descending member having an entering port which the food dough can enter in the downward direction. This ascending/descending member is provided to be movable up and down and to include three or more (equal to the number of shutter pieces) vertical shafts at equal intervals on a predetermined circle on the ascending/descending member. When each vertical shaft is rotated about its axis, a corresponding swingable member is configured to swing about the axis in the horizontal direction. Furthermore, each of the shutter pieces corresponding to the connecting members is configured to be supported movably in the longitudinal direction of the corresponding swingable member. This cutting/shaping apparatus further includes a rotational operation device for synchronously rotating the vertical shafts about their own axes for the purpose of synchronously swinging the shutter pieces in the horizontal direction so as to open and close the cutting opening part. (See, for example, Japanese Patent No. 3009140: Patent Document 1.)
In addition, cutting apparatuses for shaping a semi-open wrapped food product include a type of semi-open cutting/shaping apparatus having an edge part in each of the cutting surfaces, and the crust is thus cut with the edge parts before closing the cutting opening part. (See Japanese Patent No. 301500, for example, which will be hereinafter referred to as “Patent Document 2.”)
Furthermore, cutting/shaping apparatuses for forming twisted frills on the top of a wrapped food product include a type of frilled cutting/shaping apparatus having a shaping plate on the lower surface of each of the shutter pieces, and the shaping plates form an almost radiation pattern when the cutting opening part comes to a closing position. This cutting/shaping apparatus includes connecting members as the slide holding members. Each connecting member is locked to a corresponding shutter piece by use of an eccentric pin in which a portion pivotally supported by an eccentric pin fitting hole provided to the shutter piece is eccentric to a portion locked to the connecting member. (See, for example, Japanese Patent Application, Laid-Open No. 2001-037407: Patent Document 3.)
Moreover, sealing apparatuses for wrapping a filling with a sheet crust (a piece of food dough) by sealing a peripheral portion of the sheet crust include a type of apparatus using one of the shutter apparatuses shown in Patent Documents 1 to 3. (See, for example, FIG. 26 in Japanese Patent No. 3421658: Patent Document 4.)
In the cases of the apparatuses shown in Patent Documents 1, 2 and 4, each shutter piece is provided with a slide holding member for holding the slide of neighboring shutter pieces. However, these apparatuses have a problem that they are incapable of shaping food dough into a stable form when the abrasion or the like between neighboring shutter pieces forms a gap between the neighboring shutter pieces to allow a part of the food dough to go into the gap.
The apparatus shown in Patent Document 3 includes the connecting members each for setting the gap between each two neighboring shutter pieces at an optimal value which allow no part of food dough to go into the gap. However, this apparatus has a problem that the handling of the apparatus is troublesome, because the fitting position of the eccentric pin to which the connecting member is locked needs to be adjusted, in a case where an abrasion between the two neighboring shutter pieces or the like forms a gap inadequately.
The present invention has been made for the purpose of solving the foregoing problems. An object of the present invention is to provide a food shape-forming shutter apparatus which requires no gap to be adjusted between each two neighboring sliding shutter pieces, and which is easier to handle than any conventional type of food shape-forming shutter apparatus.